Asiatic Russia. A publication of the Resettlement Administration of the Chief Administration of Land Settlement and Agriculture

Asiatic Russia. A publication of the Resettlement Administration of the Chief Administration of Land Settlement and Agriculture

Closed Double Folio DK750 .A3

1914

Aleksandr Vasil'evich Krivoshein was an important Tsarist government official, who was appointed Minister of Agriculture in 1908. The person responsible for overseeing the actual work on these volumes was a close friend and deputy of Krivoshein's Senator and Privy Councillor Grigorii Viacheslavovich Glinka (1862-1934) from the Resettlement Administration. The two volume text is accompanied by over 700 illustrations. The first volume has articles of historical, legal and ethnographic focus (Liudi i poriadki [People and customs]); the second volume's articles are on natural sciences and economics (Zemlia i khoziaistvo [The land and economy]). Each chapter is written by a different person. A consular report on Japanese fishing made by V.V. Trautshold, the man sent to Hawaii in 1917, is listed in the bibliography of sources. The range of subjects is vast; the introduction says this is a first attempt at a Siberian encyclopedia. The most glaring omission is any reference to the exile system and penal colonies. The third volume is a list of indices: combined personal name, geographic name, and subject; sources used; photographs and drawings; maps, plans and diagrams. Reproductions of the earliest maps of Siberia are included. The Great Siberian Migration was an agricultural movement that involved European Russia, Asiatic Russia, and the Empire as a whole, and in particular its agriculture and its peasantry. Resettlement was a form of migration and important means of internal colonization. After the peasant reform of 1861 resettlement quickened with most settlers heading for Siberia. The Resettlement Administration under Privy Councilor Glinka supervised the granting of permissions to migrate. In 1905 the Resettlement Administration was reorganized into the Ministry of Agriculture and renamed the Chief Administration of Land Settlement and Agriculture [Glavnoe upravlenie zemleustroistva i zemledeliia]. Between 1906 and 1914, 3.3 million persons crossed the Urals into Siberia.

3 volumes

Russian Collection, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library

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